How To Write Songs

Category: Psychology of Creativity

  • Why do we bother making art?

    It’s a question that haunts me. According Maslow, art should be something that we only bother with once we have secure housing, food supply, love, care, and support…and yet. And yet—there is something so patently untrue about this. Art is made despite a lack of these things; often because of that lack. John Green, discussing…

  • The 3 Things I Did This Year to Write Over 20 Songs

    In this video, I share the three pillars of my creative practice that ensure I write even when not inspired, and have given me the structure to write over 20 songs this year. Producing lots of creative work is more often about the habits, practices, and environments that we build, rather than about inspiration alone.…

  • Can you learn to be obsessed?

    There is so much advice out there for writers about the importance of habit and ritual in your creative practice. But lately, I have become—frankly—a little suspect of it. The insistence on habit as the conduit of creative output is embodied by the American painter Chuck Close, who famously said, “Inspiration is for amateurs —…

  • Creativity as a physical act

    At the beginning of this year, I joined the gym. Again. I was more optimistic about it this time, since both of my kids were now in daycare a few days a week, so I had a bit more time. At the same time, I was actively working on songwriting projects with and for other…

  • What Can Business Learn from Songwriters?

    I was kindly invited by Soren Trampedach and Work Club Global, in collaboration with the Sydney-based organisation Affectors, to present an information session on some of the craft and process of a songwriter and musician. The audience were entrepreneurs and culture creators. The discussion that came about found fascinating interplays between language in song and language in…

  • Eagle Rock Fall Songwriters Retreat

      EAGLE ROCK SONGWRITERS RETREAT – OCTOBER 8 2011   Former Berklee Songwriting faculty Keppie Coutts presents the Eagle Rock Fall Songwriters Retreat on Sunday, October 8!   Fall Retreat will involve a series of creative exercises and time-proven writing techniques in the morning, equipping you with processes to bring your unique perspective and voice…

  • The Whole Brain Process

    In 1968, a psychologist called Roger W. Sperry published his groundbreaking study that showed that the two hemispheres of the human brain – the left and the right – process information in very distinct ways. Since then, there has been a lot of research and interest in left-brain and right-brain theories, and how this relates…